FRIDAY July 29, 2016

SUMMER 2016: WEEK TWO

Hobbies/ Free Time

STUDENT WRITING

Writing assignments for this summer are:
* If I won the lottery...
* My favorite place in NYC
* My NYPL experience...

If you would like to share select student writing, please upload it to the writing wiki or let us know if you need help uploading. We will use the new wiki alc-writing2017.wikispaces.com from July 2016 until June 2017.

There's also a "class projects" page on the wiki, in case you want to share a project. We would love to share it here too!

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TEACHING RESOURCES

The Free Technology for Teachers website has a nice blog post on using games in language learning. Definitely something worth checking out this summer: Games for Learning New Languages

CONVERSATION STARTERS
The hobbies wiki (alc-hobbies.wikispaces.com) has easy download jpgs: great to help start conversations about hobbies and introduce vocabulary. Also great for a warm-up activity!
Samples:

Here are some more pictures :

If you talk about TRAVELING this cycle (maybe with Ventures 3, p. 128 story and exercises about San Francisco/Alcatraz), the alc-week1 wiki has different great US postcard collages like the one below for discussion starters and writing assignments: (Easy download on the wiki)

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GOOGLE RESOURCES

We use a lot of the Google Apps in our work at the NYPL. It can get confusing! Here's a link to some more background information about all of the Google Apps we use: Training for Google Apps

Exit Ticket- Google Forms
Did you know Google Forms has an exit ticket already created for you? You can use this one: Google Forms Exit Ticket or customize it for your class. 

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SHAMELESS PLUG
For some crazy reason I volunteered to run the facebook page for the TESOL International Adult Education Interest Section. Feel free to visit and "like: the page here: Adult Education Interest Section- TESOL     -Elizabeth

If you would like to share you blog, Facebook page or website to share, just let us know!


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USING TECHNOLOGY 

Summer Tip Week 2:

Dictionaries:
Some students use Google translate. It's helpful, but not always correct. (It's great for communicating with a student about an issue outside of class, though). 

Dictionary apps for Smartphones are a much better solution, a lot of students have them already. 
Maybe have a survey in your class who uses it already and help other students with downloading apps.

Students download in the App Store (iPhone) or Google Play (other Smartphones).
Dictionaries should have an "audio" feature, so students can check out pronunciation.

It helps students to have two dictionaries on their phone:

1. English-English dictionary. Merriam Webster has great free apps:

Different Merriam Webster apps

Merriam Webster online dictionary

Are there other English-English dictionaries you'd recommend? 
Thanks for your comments!
Just added:
Merriam Webster's Learner Dictionary 
And we forgot:
Simple Wikipedia
Find out more about things in easier English.
With a useful "How to write in simple English" guide


2. English - Students' native language Dictionary
We are trying to put together a list of English-students' native language dictionary apps, and would appreciate some additions from your students. 

So far we have:
For Spanish speakers: spanishdict.com (App: Spanishdict)
For Chinese speakers: pleco.com (App: Pleco)
For Russian speakers: biggdictionary.com (App: English-Russian Dictionary)
lingvo (app and website, the app also has other languages)

We'll add more by next week and collect these resources on the student wiki (alc-students.wikispaces.com)
Can you recommend online dictionaries you or your students use?


ONE MORE. Here's a great dictionary-related resource for high intermediate and advanced students:

Skell Search Engine

Get 40 sample sentences for every word you look up, plus a 'similar words' feature. 

For teachers, click the "more features" option to get to "Sketch Engine - Learn How Language works", a tool for linguists (they offer a free trial and some free features)

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PROFESSIONAL OPPORTUNITY

Dear NYS TESOL community,

Please consider submitting an article for the Fall 2016 issue of
Idiom, NYS TESOL's quarterly, digital newsletter.

Theme: Resources for the new academic year
Deadline: August 15, 2016

Please consult our submission guidelines before sending in your
article or column for consideration.

http://idiom.nystesol.org/submissionguidelines.html

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.
We look forward to reading your submissions.

Kind regards,
Cara Tuzzolino
Editor, Idiom

editor@idiom.nystesol.org

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SHOW US THE LOVE!

One of the only ways we can know if you like what we are doing is if you make a comment on our blog page. Like our blog? Are there topics you would like us to add? Please comment! 

Would you like to contribute something? A link, teaching tip, other? Any time!

Thank you, we really appreciate your feedback!

Have a great week and a great summer!!!

Elizabeth & Elke